The day started off with a trip to the post office to get the cookie boxes for my MIL and her sister off in the mail. Before I left I also got some bad news: the neighbor I was supposed to connect with yesterday has now tested positive for COVID. I don't know about you, but I feel that as far as we have advanced with dealing with this virus, it still seems to come out of nowhere and wreck havoc in people's day to day life. So us connecting will now have to be pushed back by weeks, not days.
On a lighter note, while having breakfast this morning, I had watched Pat Sloan's video as I like to do to start my (quilty) day. One of the things she talked about was something she has mentioned before:
This is a cross stitch pattern designed by The Frosted Pumpkin that commemorates that 2023 is the "Year of the Rabbit" in the Chinese Calendar and which Pat had introduced in a previous video. I had thought it cute then especially since I expect to leave my Red & White Christmas decorations up for a while. I purchased the digital pattern thinking that it would be a cute accompaniment to the decorations while also representing the New Year.
Pat talked about going through her floss stash to kit it up so I decided to do that too! My stash is growing but small so I had to raid a few other project stashes before I came up with what I think will work. Thank goodness I had purchased a few new project bags so had something to put it in. Although Pat plans to start hers now, my plan is to start it on New Year's Day.
A close look at the pattern picture made me realize that the effect of the "called for" hand dyed flosses for some of the colors used in the pattern gave a variegated effect when used. If I am able, I might make a run to the local Michael's and see if I can find those colors in variegated DMC threads to mimic that. I also still need to look through my cross stitch fabric stash which I'm pretty sure I have a piece big enough to use for the base for this.
Later in the day, I got back to quilting the Fat Quarter Disappearing Nine Patch quilt. I will be doing a lot of the areas using the walking foot. I had already had some issues when I did the stabilizing stitching which left some of the sections a little "puffy". I'm not sure if that's from pulling the layers too tight while basting or if it's a by-product of working with a polyester batting rather than a cotton one. It means I'll be looking to "quilt out" some of the excess.
I was able to do pretty well with the ornaments corner section just following the wavy outlines of the ornaments. However, I am now struggling with the "Holiday Words" section for which the plan was just to do straight line quilting across that section. I'm getting a lot more bunching and the bobbin thread is catching. I got about half way through but need to take a break and call it a night. I may have to rethink my approach or even change machines when I resume work on this tomorrow.
1 comment:
It is frustrating when that happens! Leaving it for a while sounds like a good idea.
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